Page 26 of Amnesia

As I finished off my breakfast, I watched her. The hot chocolate was tucked into her lap. Then she plucked a chunk off the muffin top and stuffed it into her mouth.

Her eyes rolled back in her head, and a low moan filled the room. My lower belly tightened, and desire filled my limbs.

“This is so good.” Her voice was excited, like she’d found a treasure.

I didn’t say anything, just staring at her, completely taken in. She seemed different now from the first moment I walked in. Livelier, less stoic. It was almost as if she’d been lying in bed, trembling with fear.

I didn’t bring it up just then, though I sorely wanted to. I waited, watching, bemused as she devoured her muffin between sips of hot chocolate.

“Thank you for this,” she said after several minutes of us just sitting in the same room. “This is literally the best thing I’ve eaten since I woke up.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied simply.

“I didn’t think you’d come by until tonight,” she said, almost shy.

There was no way I could have gone the entire day without seeing her. “What happened? Why did the nurse try and keep me out? And why did you look that way when I walked in?”

“What way?” she asked, self-conscious.

“Terrified.”

Both her hands wrapped around the drink, as if she drew strength from the warm liquid. Once again, I noted the goose bumps racing along her bare arms and even over the exposed part of her shoulder.

I didn’t bother pointing out the obvious. She was cold. Me saying so wouldn’t change that. Instead, I rose out of the chair, unzipping the hoodie I’d thrown on this morning before I left the house.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was leery.

Moving slow, I wrapped the jacket around her back, tucking it beneath her chin. Her automatic reaction was to sigh perceptively and push her chin against the softness of the hood.

“Do you have anything to wear except that hospital gown?” I asked once I was back in the chair. My skin hummed, wanting to be closer to her.

“Not yet.” She glanced down, lightly fingering the edge of the forest-green fabric. It was just like the T-shirt she’d commented on when I saw her the day before, except in sweatshirt form. The back had the logo for Loch Gen.

“What happened?” I asked again.

Her eyes lifted, that wide-eyed, shocked expression she wore when I’d walked in accosted me. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, her body shrinking into the jacket.

“Someone tried to kill me.”

“You remembered?” Eddie’s voice was part awestruck, part wary as he gaped at the words I’d just dropped into our casual breakfast like a bomb.

“I think so.” I shook my head. “Actually, I-I’m not sure,” I answered, confused. I barely had time to sort out how I was feeling or what I knew. I was too busy being overwhelmed by it all. I was beginning to think an empty mind might be a better one. It was cleaner, a whole lot less messy.

What a reprieve Eddie was. The second he walked in, it became clear why my thoughts continued to drift to him since what happened just hours ago. He was a safe place for my over-exhausted, blank-yet-incredibly-full brain to rest.

“So you aren’t sure if someone tried to kill you?” Eddie said, sitting forward in the chair, nearly balancing his tall frame on the edge of the seat. His voice was patient, but his body language was anything but.

“Oh, someone definitely tried to kill me. They were here. In this hospital.”

“When?” he demanded, glancing around as if suddenly compelled to check every last crevice and corner in this room.

It made me feel better, but he forgot the most important place. A place I would likely fear for the rest of my life. I pointed down at the bed. “Under the bed.”

Eddie frowned. “What?”

“You didn’t check under the bed.”

Indulgently, without an ounce of disdain on his handsome face, Eddie crouched out of the chair, planted his hands on the floor, and actually searched under the bed.

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